The detection of Listeria spp. is of particular interest for the food industry and for environmental monitoring. As an example of one of the most dramatic possibilities is contamination by the Listeria monocytogenes species which can lead to death in up to 25% of affected individuals. This has been the outcome of numerous outbreaks due to L. monocytogenes contaminated meat both in the United States and abroad. Even as this application is being written, the following news announcements appeared: “Georgia's Department of Agriculture has alerted consumers of the recall of cooked, fresh and frozen lobster meat by distributor Portland Shellfish Co. Inc. due to listeria bacteria contamination,” and “Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Winnipeg-based Smith's Quality Meats are warning the public not to serve or consume all of the company's ready-to-eat cooked meats because they may be contaminated with Listeria.”
Up to 10% of humans may be intestinal carriers of L. monocytogenes and the bacteria have been found in domestic as well as feral mammalian species, as well as species of birds, fish and shellfish. The bacteria can be isolated from soil, silage, and other environmental sources. L. monocytogenes is quite hardy and resists the deleterious effects of freezing, drying, and heat remarkably well for a bacterium that does not form spores. Most L. monocytogenes are pathogenic to some degree. The organism has an unusual property of being able to cross the intestinal barrier, the blood-brain barrier and the placental barrier.
L. ivanovii has been considered to infect ruminants only. However, Guillet et al. report human listeriosis caused by L. ivanovii in the January, 2010, issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases. The isolate was indistinguishable from prototypic ruminant strains and thus, the organism is described as an enteric opportunistic human pathogen. Occasional human infections due to L. seeligeri have also been reported.
In general, L. innocua, L. welshimeri, L. seeligeri, L. marthii and L. grayi are considered nonpathogenic species. However, a case of L. grayi bacteremia in a patient with advanced Hodgkin's disease was reported in the European Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Disease (1998) and in a heart transplant recipient in 2008 (Transplant Infectious Disease, Vol. 10, Rapose et al.). All Listeria species are potential food contaminants; the presence on food of any of these species can be considered to be an indicator of contamination and of the potential presence of L. monocytogenes. Traditional culture confirmation methods used in food and environmental safety testing are lengthy and time-to-result can be greatly reduced by using rapid molecular methods.
U.S. Published Patent Application No. 2006/0078901 to the Pasteur Institute reportedly provides the genome sequence and nucleotide sequences of L. monocytogenes EGD-e. U.S. Pat. No. 7,439,022 relates to nucleic acids for detection of Listeria and reports alignments of sequences from five Listeria species for each of rnpB and rfn genes along with consensus sequences for each. Leclercq et al. (International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, Nov. 13, 2009) reported a Listeria-like strain isolated from pre-cut lettuce that was differentiated from other species of Listeria by using phenotypic tests. They proposed the species name Listeria rocourtiae for the new species. The type strain is said to be avirulent as assessed by cell culture assays and inoculation of mice.
Early detection of the presence of Listeria is extremely important both from a public health perspective and from an economic perspective.